Mountain View's oldest home, the Rengstorff Mansion located in Shoreline Park

The area that now encompasses Shoreline Park has been important to Mountain View since the town first started. Before European settlement, this area was originally sloughs and marshlands that gradually winded into the open waters of the San Francisco Bay. By the 1860s Mountain View pioneers like Henry Rengstorff, George Jagel, and Captain Guth began to utilize the area. They formed Rengstorff Landing, Jagels Landing, and Guth Landing along the sloughs.. Wharves, docks, and warehouses began to be built along Mountain View's waterfront. 

Before the train came into Mountain View, these landings were very important to the early agricultural industry of the Santa Clara Valley. During the later half of the 1800s Mountain View was not yet known for its orchards. Instead, hundreds of acres around the town were used as vineyards. In 1896 their were 22 wineries in the area that now surrounds Mountain View. Schooners would dock at one of Mountain View's three landings and wine produced in Mountain View would be shipped across the bay to San Francisco. 

But after the train came, shipping over the bay became archaic. The busy landings of Mountain View slowly went into decline. The land was used for low intensity agricultural production because the more productive soils could be found closer to Mountain View. In the early 1900s hunters from San Francisco would come down by train to their cottages in Castro City near Mountain View. From there they would make hunting trips to the bay lands that now are a part of Shoreline.

In the 1920s an effort was made to resurrect the landings by the South Shore Port Company. South Shore dredged a deep water channel near what is now Moffett Field. South Shore Port never became successful, its deep water channel constantly silted up.  During the 1920s into the 1930s, what was left of the channel became a popular watering hole for Mountain View residents.

South Shore Port

Leslie Salt Company transformed 850 acres of marshland between Charleston Slough and Stevens Creek into two salt ponds. The salt ponds completely changed the way the area looked, and altered the ecosystem greatly. The remaining marshlands were isolated from the tidal flow and were further destroyed as the growing population of Mountain View began to use the marshlands as a dumping ground.

In the 1950s, Mountain View began is largest growth boom too date. Highway 101 was built, isolating the Shoreline Area from the rest of the city. Very few people came up to Mountain View's bay front, some didn't even know Mountain View was next to the San Francisco Bay. But city leaders began to draw up plans for a grand shoreline park along Mountain View's bay front. The plans were completed in 1958, and can still be viewed at the city library. Shoreline Park as envisioned in 1958 was much different from the park we have today. City leaders wanted to built a more urban park along the bay. Plans included a zoo, small amusement park, marina, aerial tram, hotel, conference center, sailing lake, golf course, and shopping area. 

But in order to build such a park, the land needed to be made safe from tidal flow and flooding. It would have been too costly to just truck in the dirt to raise the land, so the city made a deal with San Francisco. For 13 years, starting in 1968, 500 acres of land were used as landfill. The city charged San Francisco for the right to dump garbage in Mountain View, and saved the money for a construction of a park on top of the landfill. In the 1980s, Mountain View began the process of closing the dumps and began to turn the area into Shoreline Park.

By the 1980s, people were much more concerned with the preservation of natural habitats and bayside marshland. The plans for Shoreline were changed to take a mixture of both natural habitat, landscaped parkland, and attractions. Plans for the shopping center, hotel, zoo, conference center, and marina were eventually discarded. Although plans for the conference center and hotel were taken out of Shoreline, they were not completely discarded. The city decided to shift the conference center/hotel location to the adjacent North Bayshore area. Plans are currently underway to build a four star hotel just outside of Shoreline Park's borders. 

However, other things, such as the golf course, and sailing lake remained in the plans for the park. Two restaurants were built in the park, one in a boat house along the lake, and the other in the golf club house. The city decided to lease part of the Shoreline Park area to Bill Graham Presents, who put up the tents of one of Mountain View's most prominent landmarks, Shoreline Amphitheater. In 1980, the city moved Mountain View's oldest home, The Rengstorff Mansion, into the park. The house had been damaged greatly over the years, but by 1990 it was completely restored and opened to the public. It is now one of Shoreline Park's most charming attractions. 

But even though the park has a diverse list of attractions, the main reason people visit Shoreline today are to use the miles of hiking trails in the park. Trails wind around the park, connecting it to the neighboring Palo Alto Baylands park, and to Downtown Mountain View via the Stevens Creek trail. More recently, the park has been expanded to include the landfill's two tallest points, Vista Slope and Crittenden Slope. At the top of these man-made hills, hikers can get a great view of Mountain View and the mountain ranges for which the city is named.

Future plans for Shoreline Park include the expansion of the park's trail system, including a connector trail between Shoreline and the Sunnyvale Baylands. Plans are currently being developed to return the Cargil Salt Ponds back to their natural condition. This would totally change the look and feel of Shoreline Park. Hundreds of acres of restored marshland would return the Shoreline Park area to conditions that haven't been seen since the area was first settled in the 1840s. But full restoration of the salt ponds will be a long way off. Meanwhile, marshland restoration continues within the parks 3 marshland habitats. Efforts by the city also include enhancement of other natural and man made areas of the park.

Mountain View is lucky to have a piece of open space this large within its borders. The natural habitats of the park become more valuable every day as development continues to spread over the Bay Area's remaining natural lands. As the population of Mountain View and the Silicon Valley grows, Shoreline Park will serve as a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city for residents and native animals alike.